With that, Watson flopped backward onto the bed as though he’d been shot.
“I refuse to apologize for having an interest in botany,” I said, trying not to laugh. I was always trying very hard not to laugh.
It’s possible he could tell. I never knew with him. Either way, he sat up on his elbows, smiling at me a bit lopsidedly. “Red orchids, white orchids—I’m sure you’ll dig in soon enough. Either way, they’re creepy. We’re headed back into creepy territory, here. And this is a cold case, a year old. Matilda could be anywhere.”
“The last case we had was hot enough for a lifetime,” I said. “And I don’t think we’re looking for Matilda. Not exactly. What Larkin wants is preventative work. Protecting the students who come this year. I’d prefer to do that than to clean up a Moriarty’s mess.”
He grew serious at that. “Do you have a plan?”
“I do,” I allowed. “But it’s getting quite late. Unless—unless you wanted to stay. It would be fine. With me, I mean, if you stayed.”
Caution was my watchword. Watson and I were rebuilding something, and I wasn’t quite sure what it would end up being, and in the meantime I didn’t want to push things unnecessarily, and also he still made me incredibly nervous.
Watson was watching me. “I want to know what you’ve deduced that made you take this insane leap,” he said finally. “But—won’t it foil whatever dastardly plan you have, if I’m not in the room with Rupert tonight to hear his reaction?”
“A bit,” I said.
Watson shrugged. “Then I’ll see what I can do.”
“Tell me what he says in the morning. And I’ll tell you what I’ve surmised.”
“An intelligence swap, Detective?”
I felt my lips twitch. “Indeed, Doctor.”
“Tomorrow, then,” he said. “Breakfast before your first lecture?”
“Come by at eight. We’ll have scones. I’ll walk you to class.”
He smiled to himself, his eyes gone soft. Off somewhere in a memory, or another life. Back at Sherringford, perhaps. “’Night,” he said, and before he left he pulled me in and kissed me on the forehead, and this once, my body let me accept it without flinching away.
It was becoming abundantly clear that, contrary to appearances and negotiated terms, I had no idea at all what I was doing.
I WAS AWAKE AT SIX THIRTY, AS I HAD BEEN SINCE I’D BEEN back on a proper sleep schedule. (It had been some time since I’d been up smoking til dawn in a nest of my own research.) Leander was still in bed when I got up—he’d come in quite late the night before, past midnight—and so I made myself a quiet cup of tea, poured it into a takeaway mug, and set out for a wander so that my footsteps wouldn’t wake him. It was a pacing sort of morning.
There had been some truth to what I’d said last night at dinner, that I was anxious at the thought of entering a new social sphere with Watson at my side. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him there. I wanted him there desperately. But I was worried about the weight of expectation—well. I was worried about my expectations for myself. I had been presented with a pretty little puzzle box of a mystery, here, and already I was showboating for his benefit rather than considering the case.
As in: Did I really need to run my foot up Rupert’s pant leg? There were many paths up the mountain, after all. And yet here we were.
Here, right now, was the little café down the street from our flat. It was called Blackmarket, though there was no whiff of any illegal activity on the premises. They sold coffee, and muffins, and a “cheeky snowman” latte that I only ordered when alone, so that as few people as possible would hear me say the words.
It was what I was doing just then, placing my order (and asking them to skip the snowman face they drew with strawberry syrup onto the whipped cream, I did have some last reserves of dignity) when Anwen walked up beside me. It wasn’t yet seven o’clock, but the café table behind her was heaped with books. I could just see the title of the one on top: Speech and Motivation in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.
“I’d thought you looked familiar last night,” she said, by way of greeting. “I must have seen you here before. I’m here most mornings in the summer.”
“Oh,” I said, because I hadn’t had my latte yet, and that was about all I could muster.
She’d been up for some time, clearly: her hair in a fishtail braid, her nails freshly painted. I could still smell the polish.
She seemed to want me to continue, so I said, “So you come here often?”
“I mean, yeah?” she said, as though I was daft. “Uh, yeah, this is one of our regular spots. Convenient to St. Genesius—the theater’s right over there, do you see it? Through the window. Which doesn’t matter much to Rup, he’ll follow me and Theo pretty much anywhere.”
I nodded. The barista handed me my drink.
Anwen looked at me again, as though she was waiting for me to give her something in return. Talkative people didn’t often do this, pause for the other person to speak; usually, when presented with a willing listener, they’d prattle on until stopped. But Anwen seemed to want something specific from me.
“I live down the street,” I offered.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s quite a nice address, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said, and waited.
“Jamie’s very nice.”
“I’ve often thought so.” Despite my request, the barista had gone and drawn the snowman face onto my drink anyway. When I took a drink, I made its eyes bleed across the whipped cream. Anwen watched, fascinated. Her eyes flickered back up to meet mine.
I don’t often feel the need to apologize for myself or my actions in a social setting (really, I’ve come to like myself quite well in the day-to-day) but there was something about this girl that made me feel deeply ridiculous. My snowman wasn’t helping.
I thought for a moment. “I don’t have a lot to say before my coffee.” It was the sort of thing, after all, that people said.
“Rupert suggested that I ask you to run lines with me,” she said. It was a particularly ham-fisted sort of insult. Framed this way, Anwen herself would never want to run lines with me; she was only suggesting it out of obligation. “I’m doing costumes, but I’m auditioning for Ophelia, too. Rupert says I play her a bit unusually. It would be interesting to have your take.”
I had told her the night before I was auditioning for the part. This was either a bald-faced power play, or she was so assured in her own talent that she thought I ought to bask in it as well.
Or she wanted to be my friend. That was, perhaps, the scariest of all.
She didn’t know I’d already been called in to understudy the role, so the pressure was entirely off. And the possibilities ripe. “Do you want to meet at the theater?” I asked, putting just the tiniest bit of quaver in my voice. There it was, the whir of my brain; the coffee must have kicked in.
“Perfect,” she said, reaching out to lightly touch my arm. “I’ll meet you at the doors at noon.”
After an encounter like that, I wasn’t going to stick around.
Instead I had my usual constitutional. I chose a building on the St. Genesius grounds I hadn’t yet explored (the boathouse) and mapped it top to bottom. I loitered by the door, looking intently at my phone, until the clerk at the desk disappeared into the back, and then made a quick inventory. The number of punts; the number of poles, aluminum and wooden; the entrances and exits, the photographs on the walls.